First post from Melbourne!

Well I finally have some time to make a post on this thing! Everything has been very hectic since we first got here, so I'll try to recall it as best I can.

We got here on Friday(July 3rd) in the morning. We left on Wednesday afternoon from Dulles and from LAX about 7 hours later. From LAX it took about 15 1/2 hours to get to Melbourne. I was really dreading this part of the trip, but it turns out it wasn't all that bad. The first flight was rough because there wasn't alot of entertainment and the movie was "Return to Witch Mountain"....not something I would generally choose. We were planning on having a 3 hour layover in LA but it ended up only being over an hour after some delays getting there. Unfortunately we were in the international terminal which was in the process of being built and had little to no food options(other than a See's candy stand, which thanks to Aunt Nancy, I am a BIG fan of). When we walked down the terminal to get on our Qantas 747 jet to take us to Melbourne I was shocked at how huge the plane was. It was by far the biggest I had seen and had 3 seats on one side, 4 in the middle, and 3 on the opposite side across which stretched back over 100 rows. I was really fortunate to have no one next to me on that flight and to be on an aisle seat, which allowed me to stretch my legs out and almost...enjoy the flight! There were tons of free movies, TV shows, radio channels, and even books on tape. One of the coolest features was a camera on the back wing tip of the plane that you could watch in flight. It was awesome watching the take off and landing. Anyway, to things that matter more...after 15 1/2 hours, breakfast, lunch, a bunch of snacks, really good customer service(all with Aussie accents) and almost no sleep, we landed in Melbourne.

From the airport we went through customs and a quarantine section. It's always comforting when you see tons of people in the airport with masks on their faces....they really are freaked out about swine flu here. We took a bus into the city and it dropped us off at a station where some of the full time staff people met us to take our bags to the hostel.

When we got to the hostel we got settled in and I unpacked all my stuff(since I really like being organized and trying to establish a routine). A few minutes later, Dan told us that we would be leaving for the conference a couple days later and had to move everything out. Fortunately I was too tired at that point to be upset.

Those first couple of days are a blir. We went to bed at 9pm the first night and 10pm the second. It was a struggle making it to those times the first couple of days, and I was waking up at random times throughout the night.

The third day(Sunday) we loaded up on buses to head to the Mid-Year Conference for Student Life(Australia's version of Campus Crusade for Christ...apparently 'Crusade' has a bad connotaion here...not sure why haha). The conference consisted of students from Melbourne(in the state of Victoria) and its surrounding suburbs, and Sydney(in New South Wales) and its suburbs. There were a few hundred students there which was really encouraging. The Sydney movements are much more developed and have been around longer, but still are growing very rapidly. The movements here in Melbourne are only 4 or 5 years old and are changing quite a bit each year. It was a great way to start the trip by meeting students from all over the country and getting to know the culture. The conference was very similar to Virginia Tech's fall break, with praise and worship, a key speaker, meals together, training sessions, seminars, and then some fun recreational stuff. We played some soccer and ultimate frisbee and really got to bond with some of the students that we'll be working with.

I think the conference was a great way to start the trip and will be really rewarding once we start working on the campuses. Currently the students here are on their "winter" break, and start classes back in 2 weeks, so this week we will be doing some training and just overall getting familiar with the area. So far I've only made one tourist purchase - an AFL scarf. We have watched a couple of Australia Football League games on TV and I really do enjoy it. I would say it's a combination of soccer, american football, and rugby and is almost constant action. I bought a scarf for the "Carlton Blues" which is a team we are going to watch play next week in the MCG - a stadium here in Melbourne that holds like 100,000 people.

Anyway, my time here on the public library computer is about to run out, but I feel like this has been a decent update. I'm not sure when the next time I'll be able to update will be - but I'm definitely going to try for once a week.

Overall things are going well. No one in our group has gotten sick, and I think everyone has adjusted to the times pretty well. Please continue to pray for us to be prepared to do the work on campuses that we'll be doing, and that the hearts of those that we interact with will be softened. I'm really excited to see what is to come within the next couple of weeks and can't wait to share it with you all!

Talk to you soon,
allen